


citizens of the sky

by minhyukwithagun (deadlylampshades)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: (somewhat), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, au where life events manifest as pictures on your skin, best friends wonhyuk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlylampshades/pseuds/minhyukwithagun
Summary: The story of your life is etched on your body till your skin is like a canvas – and for that reason Minhyuk never understands why he wasbornwith a mark.





	citizens of the sky

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday to my dirt friend <33

The story of your life is etched on your body till your skin is like a canvas – and for that reason Minhyuk never understands why he was _born_ with a mark. The colourful tattoos which adorned everyone’s skin appeared through time, through major events – not at birth. These marking were symbolic, sometimes perplexing in the way they seemed to relate to the event which bestowed them. How could he already have one at birth? His parents didn’t have an answer, and his mother just smiled sweetly and adjusted his fringe every morning.

Minhyuk doesn’t realize how much of an outcast he is until some unimportant day in elementary school. His hair is pressed neatly down, and he’s playing a game with some other children, and in the flurry of hands and feet, he trips.

He falls, yes, but more than that, his hair flips upwards revealing his mark, the one on his skin for all this time. It’s a sun, a dull yellow tattoo, etched on his forehead and his classmates stare in amusement.

A life marking? Already? On his _head_? That was an anomaly like no other.

Life markings were said to be the visual representation of the soul, and it was the mark that appeared on your own skin as well as the ones closest to you.

They crowd around him, and Minhyuk hastily presses his fringe down – but the damage was done and he wishes they’d stop _staring_. 

“That’s such a strange place for a mark,” Gukhwa remarks, tugging on her school tie thoughtfully. “It’s so dull as well.” Without waiting for his affirmation, she moves his hair away to observe it closely. Minhyuk feels like a dog on show.

“When did you get it?” she asks.

Minhyuk rejects the offer of one of Sungjin’s hands to help him up. He struggles to his feet, kicking up grass and takes a step back from Gukhwa’s powerful gaze. He wishes everyone would stop _staring_ and just go back to their game.

“Oh, don’t get upset now,” Gukhwa says, upon noticing his expression. “I have a mark too.”

And she pulls up her sleeve to show an ebony rose swirling around her forearm, the petals wide, the stem unblemished. The rose is beautiful. It’s spectacular in the way Minhyuk's sun never could be.

“It appeared a few months ago. I think it’s _my_ marking,” and everyone ooh’s on cue, because imagine getting your _life marking_ at age eight.

And then the game dissolves into talk of life markings, of the ones they’ve seen on their family and friends, and what they’d think their own marking would be.

Minhyuk hangs back on the fringes of the conversation, his heart still thrumming with anxiety. He notices one of the other boys continuing to stare at him, and Minhyuk presses his hair down further, wishing the stupid sun would just go away.

The bell rings and before Minhyuk can escape back to class, the staring boy taps Minhyuk's arm, so gentle. Minhyuk turns around, resembling a startled deer, but softens at the innocence in the boy’s eyes.

“I’m sorry they found out like that,” he says.

Minhyuk purses his lips. “It doesn’t matter.”

And it doesn’t, right? It’s just a silly little sun, they would have found out _anyway_. This reveal was bound to happen. Everyone would eventually get the mark that symbolizes themselves. It was just… more dramatic than he would have liked.

The boy – _Hoseok,_ Minhyuk finally remembers – shakes his head. “It’s still not fair.” Hoseok is rubbing his hands together, and at first Minhyuk thinks it’s in nervousness, but then he lifts up his right hand, palm inwards, and Minhyuk sees that through a smudge of rubbed off concealer, are a set of angel wings inked on his skin.

“I got my life marking when I was six years old,” Hoseok finally says. “I still don’t quite understand it.”

The wings are so detailed, so delicately sophisticated that all Minhyuk wants to touch them – but he refrains himself, remembering how intruded he felt when Gukhwa did the same thing to him.

“They’re beautiful,” Minhyuk finally says.

“They’re weird.”

Minhyuk doesn’t know what to say because, yeah, they are weird. People didn’t usually didn’t start getting life markings quite so early in life, and especially not in a place _so_ visible. But Minhyuk likes the angel wings. They’re really something special.

“I don’t know what my sun means either,” Minhyuk finally says.

“I think it’s nice,” Hoseok says, and that’s how Minhyuk makes his first real friend.

It’s only when he gets home that night and removes his socks that he notices the wilted flower on his ankle. He knows it’s useless, but he tries to scrub it away anyway, he scrubs and scrubs until the skin is raw and red, but the flower remains.

(He thinks it looks a bit like a chrysanthemum. He doesn’t like to think about it when he realizes that.)

 

Down his spine is a lightning bolt, and he remembers it appearing the very first day of high school, when all his new school worries disappear as he finds himself laughing with the friends he just met.

It’s easier now. Everyone has marks now – little things. Minhyuk still wears his hair down, but doesn’t wilt whenever someone sees the mark anymore. No one needs to know he’s had it since he was born. For all they know, it appeared this morning.

There was no real _reason_ for marks to appear – they just blossomed whenever a significant event happened, and what exactly equated significant seemed to be unable to be predicted.

There were patterns, of course.

Births. Deaths. Those were the common ones.

And then,

Love.

Of course, Minhyuk knew about love marks, not like the kind left by teeth, but the kinds embedded on skin. His parents had them: his mother’s an owl, his father’s a cloud. Minhyuk observed the way his mother would sometimes tenderly rub her shoulder that held his father’s mark – it was a sign of affection, and such a pure one.

To be truly in love, it seemed, you had to have the other person’s life mark appear on yourself.

Those kind of marks were different to soulmate marks – rare pictures that were some sort of combination between the two’s identities. Minhyuk had never seen any in real life, but did find himself wondering exactly what something combined with a sun would look like.

He had lost contact with Hoseok through the years, and by divine providence – or maybe just a change from Economics class - he finds him in his Geography class in the tenth grade, and he can’t remember when they start talking but he knows they never really stop and he doesn’t need a mark on his body to know Hoseok has become one of the most important people in his life.

He would still like a mark though.

He knew Hoseok was seeing somebody, and he knew Hoseok was _dedicated_ and _devoted_ – and he also knew the day Hoseok’s heart broke, a teardrop appeared on the skin just underneath his ear, and never left.

Minhyuk decides to just smile broadly and say, “Oh! It’s a raindrop! That’s cool, isn’t it? Rain’s all about bringing life.”

And Hoseok, despite his red eyes and puffy face, smiles. “Yeah. A raindrop.”

Hoseok covers the teardrop after that day, and eventually he offers to teach Minhyuk how to conceal his marks.

He doesn’t have many, and none are particularly visible, but Hoseok looks at him so earnestly, and he complies, and watches in mute amazement as Hoseok applies the foundation and concealer until his sun is obscured. Minhyuk forgot what he looked like with his forehead parted.

 

When Gukhwa asks him to prom in his final year of school, he says yes, because he doesn’t want to disappoint her, because she’s beautiful and because there’s no one he wanted to ask anyway.

She wears a yellow dress – and Minhyuk doesn’t know if it’s intentional or not, if she even _remembers_ the event that happened six years prior.

Minhyuk does. He wears an ebony tuxedo.

It’s a beautiful evening, really. The hall the school rented out has delicate fairy lights and everyone is dancing and smiling and laughing and Minhyuk joins in.

 Gukhwa’s hand is so small in Minhyuk's as he twirls her around, and they mess up the dance a bit, but she laughs and smiles and so does he.

At the end of the night, Gukhwa leans in and presses a gentle kiss to Minhyuk and he holds her as she enters into his embrace.

It’s nice.

Gukhwa is beautiful, Gukhwa is popular and Gukhwa genuinely cares for Minhyuk. He likes talking to her. It’s just…

She’s overwhelming at times. The chaos in Minhyuk's head doesn’t have _room_ for Gukhwa’s chaos.

But it’s okay. He makes room for her. He shifts up all his thoughts into neat little boxes, and every time he meets up with her, he makes sure that she occupies his mind.

 

They’re at her dormitory, and Gukhwa carefully locks the door before lightly stepping to Minhyuk, smiling shyly.

Gukhwa was never shy.

“I want to show you something,” she says. And Minhyuk nods as she hitches her shirt up, and there, on the left thigh, is a sun.

It’s his sun.

“Oh. I think I love you,” Minhyuk says, because he’s never _realized_ that his sun actually looked that _beautiful_. It wasn’t just a yellow splodge. It was so delicate.

“Yeah?” Gukhwa looks positively _giddy_.

 

Minhyuk spends half an hour in the shower, desperately trying to find _any_ trace of her ebony rose, any evidence that he loves her, because he does, he definitely does. He doesn’t find any. He still checks daily.

 

Gukhwa never questions why Minhyuk doesn’t have her mark yet. She saw all his others, and never found the one she actually wants.

So she waits. She waits a long time. And Minhyuk _knows_ every time he comes over, every time he undresses, every time he’s with her, she’s looking for her rose.

It never appears, and Gukhwa starts frowning more.

Minhyuk's sun is still there.

But the ebony rose on Gukhwa’s arm begins to grow thorns and she begins to grow impatient.

 

And Minhyuk thinks it’s okay, it’s fine, right? Maybe he just stopped _having_ marks. That happens, right?

But then he’s with Hoseok for the first time in far too long, and he’s laughing at a joke, and the sun is setting, and Minhyuk can’t resist pointing to it and saying: “That’s me!”

And Hoseok just throws his arm around Minhyuk, and contently lies back, telling him about his new plans, his new boyfriend, his new pet tortoise. And Minhyuk can’t resist grinning while Hoseok gushes to him, and he can’t believe it’s been so long since they’ve been together, just the two of them, lying on the grass, staring at the sky.

Hoseok pulls up the leg of his jeans and shows off a new mark on his calf – a shard of glass. Minhyuk's brows furrow initially, because _surely_ that’s not a _good_ sign, but as Hoseok recounts everything about how much he cares for the person representing the mark, Minhyuk feels nothing but joy at the thought that his best friend found someone worth having, someone with sharp edges but someone who reflected everything good that Hoseok ever did.

“What about you?” Hoseok says, the sun having finally set behind the mountain, and the night sky dotting with stars. Minhyuk wants to take the moment and save it in his mind. “How are you? How are things with Gukhwa?”

“Difficult,” is the word Minhyuk finally decides on.

Hoseok looks at Minhyuk very carefully. “Do you still love her?”

“I do. I do, but…”  Minhyuk trails off, thinking about the excitement which radiated off her the day she showed him the sun. “I don’t have her mark yet.”

His friend grows quiet. “It’s been nearly five years, Minhyuk. Love takes time, yes, but…” Hoseok shifts on the bench. “Didn’t she get yours after a year?”

Minhyuk nods, his head tilted down.

“I got your sun just a few months after we started being best friends.”

Minhyuk would not forget the day he went home after school, miserable after a horrible Geography exam, and sank into Hoseok’s couch, looking up with mild interest at the way Hoseok paced around the room before he pulled up his shirt, and on the small of his back, a sun emblazoned.

He, rather shyly, asked for Minhyuk's opinion, and Minhyuk remembers he declared they’d be friends forever. It’s a memory that sticks with him, till today.

“And you do care for her?”

“I do!” Minhyuk insists, and wonders why he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.

“And she loves you?”

“She does.”

“Then, she’ll be willing to wait,” Hoseok says decisively.

And Minhyuk feels his heart lighten.

 

It’s 3am when Minhyuk sees a message from Hoseok and thinks it must be important, maybe he left his keys in Minhyuk's bag but then he opens the message and it’s an image of Hoseok’s leg and Minhyuk is so confused and then he sees what’s surrounding his right leg.

It’s a swirling circle of gold but it’s not a ring, as he initially thought – it’s a _halo_.

He barely has time to process this – and the implications it has for his own markings – when his phone rings and Hoseok excitedly describes the image he sent.

“I always knew we were going to be friends forever,” Hoseok says. “Now we _have_ to, because how awkward would it be if I just went around with this for the rest of our lives.”

“It’s a soulmate mark, isn’t it?” Minhyuk whispers.

“It is. It’s a sun and an angel. It’s a halo. It’s _our_ mark.”

“But… I don’t have it,” Minhyuk says, examining every section of skin in his body.

“It doesn’t matter. I have it. I know what it means.”

 

Thorns jut out of her rose.

Gukhwa never says anything - not directly. Minhyuk never tells her about the mark – but Hoseok doesn’t keep it secret and it’s all too possible that word gets to her. Minhyuk thinks it doesn’t bother her.

It’s weeks later when he notices a small tornado at the back of her neck in a brief moment when she adjusts her ponytail.

Minhyuk feels the physical weight of guilt on his conscience. He would draw the tattoo on himself, if he could, if it would just make her stop looking so hurt, because he didn't want to make her feel bad. He loved her. He did.

 

Minhyuk is very careful about the topic of Hoseok around Gukhwa.

"It's his graduation party tomorrow night. Would you like to go with me?" he asks, dropping her off at her apartment after a dinner date. He booked the table, he drove them there, and he laughed and smiled and she still had a scowl fixed on her face.

"No," she says bluntly. "But go ahead. You have fun."

And Minhyuk knows it's a trap, and he knows that as she says that, thorns are growing, but he has to be there.

“I’ll see you Monday, then.”

Her hand is on the handle, but she pauses to look at Minhyuk. “For someone who just bubbles with emotion every moment of your _life_ , you think you’d be able to summon one for me? Just one?”

She struggles with the door before remembering to unlock it and steps out of the car. She looks down at Minhyuk for a moment.

“It’s just a fucking flower, Minhyuk. Why’s it so _difficult_ for you?”

 

Hoseok embraces him in a bone-crushing hug the moment he walks in the door, as if he somehow can sense the sadness within Minhyuk and wants to squeeze it out. "Minhyuk! Come on in! My fiancée is pouring the punch."

Hoseok cannot resist sprinkling the word 'fiancée' in every sentence out of his mouth, and Minhyuk just grins in amusement. The ring on Hoseok's finger glimmers, even in the dull lights of the living room.

Minhyuk pours himself a cup and sits down on the couch, trying to keep a smile on his face, and keep the conversations light and breezy. But Gukhwa’s words keep swirling around his mind, and that’s the thing _she’s_ right, why doesn’t he have markings for _anyone else_ but his things that happen in his own life? Was he that selfish, was he that much of an awful person? Did all he care about was himself?

No, no, he can’t _think_ about that here – but it’s so hard not to fixate on it, it’s so hard not to wonder why he’s the problem, blaming his own mind and body.

Minhyuk sips from the cup and tries to write his best man speech mentally. He deliberates on mentioning the halo, the soulmate mark which unites them -

and then decides against it, because Gukhwa would not forgive if he does that.

It's been _five years_. He can't blame her for being frustrated. He's frustrated at himself. He just wish he could force himself to love her, he wished he could claw the dumb rose into his skin himself...

He feels guilt scratch at his skin again and his throat feels like it’s on fire, his face is hot, and everything is _too much_ and too claustrophobic, and he wonders why his entire neck constricts around him. He weaves through the crowds, and steps out on the balcony, inhaling deeply. He belatedly realizes he forgot his drink, and doesn't bother going back.

He just leans over the railing, the cool air soothing his burning throat, and tries to remember how to breathe.

"It's really loud in there."

Minhyuk looks up to see the source of the sound is one of Hoseok's guests, a tall man with a mop of brown hair blending in with the wall. He's covered up rather conservatively for a summer night.

"I needed some air," Minhyuk finally says after pausing, trying to force words out of his mouth, despite the resistance of his body.

"It's a good place for air," he comments. “It’s just everywhere.”

Minhyuk cracks a smile. “I'm Minhyuk."

"Hyungwon," he says, tilting his head. He steps forward into the light, and looks at Minhyuk, and seems to wince imperceptibly as he analyses his face. But then it passes, and Hyungwon looks away. "I've heard of you, you know? Hoseok adores the ground you walk on."

If that just wasn’t so _typical_ of Hoseok. "We’ve been friends for years,” Minhyuk says as some kind of explanation. Hoseok did have a picture of Minhyuk in his wallet, right next to the one of his fiancée, and hamster.

“I’m glad you two have each other,” and curiously, Hyungwon sounds sincere.

Minhyuk thinks it’s a bit too blunt when he says “I haven't heard of you, truthfully," and opens his mouth to apologize – but then

Hyungwon shrugs, and Minhyuk is mystified at the way his long limbs just fluidly move. "We're casual friends. He said I should come. So I'm here. I may be regretting it."

He's honest. He's honest in the way Minhyuk wishes he could be more often. It's nice. He often feels like he has to coat his words, underplay them, to not scare anyone away with his intensity.

"You look burdened with thought,” Hyungwon says, moving from the wall, and leaning over the railings, looking down. “You can share it if you like.” There’s no hint of pressure, no demand in his words, just vague interest.

Minhyuk can't even make out the shapes of the cars in the street below, but there's certain serenity about staring the darkness face on.

"You're quite the perceptive person, aren’t you?" Minhyuk says, looking down in the same direction as Hyungwon.

All Hyungwon says is: “I can see.” He rests his elbows on the railings, leaning back and looks out - his sleeves slide down, ever so slightly, and Minhyuk sees a marking. A marking of harsh black lines of barbed wire, encircling his wrist like some sort of twisted bracelet.

It's so impolite, he really shouldn't-

"What are those from?"

The words rushed out of Minhyuk's mouth before he could stop them.

Hyungwon looks down, not offended, almost bored, and just pulls his sleeve back. "It's a memory. A memory of being kept in a very specific kind of jail, that didn't need any bars to keep me in."

"Oh," Minhyuk says, his heart filling with pity. "I'm sorry I asked, oh-"

"No, don't be," he says, and then holds out his hand, baring his wrist and Minhyuk realizes: the wires have a break in them. It’s discontinuous.

"You're free," Minhyuk says softly.

"Yeah. Yeah I am," Hyungwon says and they lock glances. “It used to smother my whole hand, like a glove. It would just be _there_ , every day, this kind of constant reminder. Then it just… started disappearing when I left. But it was still enclosed. Then, it just broke open, one morning, when I realized I hadn’t thought about why that mark was there in so long. I moved on. It stopped hurting me. It stopped keeping me in my own prison.”

Hyungwon is still looking at him, and Minhyuk feels his gaze burn against him. Minhyuk has this mad urge, this silly little impulse to hold Hyungwon's hand and trace the barbed wire but that's ridiculous, they just met, it's the middle of a balcony at a party, and you don’t go around holding stranger’s trauma marks.

Though,

From the way Hyungwon's hand hesitated in the air for a moment, Minhyuk wondered if he wanted the same.

Being capable to look in his soft hazel eyes any longer, Minhyuk looked up at the sky. "The moon's out."

Hyungwon just hums in agreement, and doesn't even look up. "Well, it is night.”

“It’s a nice moon.”

“I don't have any fondness for any time of day."

"I'd say the same but I do like when its-"

And it's almost too perfect when they both say the word 'sunset'.

Hyungwon looks at Minhyuk again, and he has that look in his eyes again, like he’s witnessing something physically painful.

Hyungwon doesn't offer empty words of sympathy, he just nods. "Remember when we were younger? And these marks used to appear all the time."

Minhyuk smiles, a mix between fondness and sadness. He had such _few_ marks, but he knew that was the experience universally shared. "It was terrifying. I'd be afraid to even have a conversation with someone, just in case I'm stuck with them for the rest of my life." It’s a practised response, the kind used to pretend he understood what it was like.

"It's nice that they've stopped being so common. They're more meaningful, I think." Hyungwon sighs and rubs his wrist. "I say that, and yet, I have a cross on knee which I still don't understand."

"I've never heard of that shape before," Minhyuk remarks. "And it's not your... mark?"

"No," Hyungwon says, assured, but he also doesn't offer to divulge the information on what his mark is either. "It popped up a few months ago. I wish I knew why."

Hyungwon, despite being taller, still seems so small and gentle. And yet, the moment he spoke, his voice filled the room. Soft, but sure. "When was your last mark?" he asks.

The most recent one on his skin was a small treble clef, on his midriff, the day he graduated university, some two years prior. He tells this to Hyungwon, who looks at him so curiously, but just nods.

Well, Minhyuk caused Gukhwa’s thorns nearly daily. Did that count?

"It’s past midnight,” Hyungwon says, checking his phone for a moment and then putting it away. “Will you be going soon?”

“I have nowhere to be,” Minhyuk says. “So I suppose I’ll stay longer.”

“That’s not a very good reason to stay.”

“It’s still a reason,” Minhyuk says and he didn’t realize the words sounded quite so harsh until he spits it out. He doesn’t think he’s talking about the time anymore but he can’t begin to explain to Hyungwon what he _is_ talking about.

“I do have to go though,” Hyungwon says, sighing. “I promised my lift I’d be done by now.”

“Oh.”

Minhyuk wished he didn’t feel so… sad at the thought of their conversation ending. Hyungwon was no one. They just spoke for a while, but it didn’t mean anything, it’s not like they were friends. It was just party talk, it meant _nothing,_ he was a nobody, just some random guy, it meant nothing-

“Minhyuk?” Hyungwon says, his voice instantly commanding Minhyuk's attention.

“Yes?”

Hyungwon, very slowly and deliberately, so Minhyuk has every opportunity to step in, leans in and takes a hold of Minhyuk's hand and holds it in his own. “You’ll be okay. Not right now, maybe not tomorrow. But you’ll be okay.”

Hyungwon's hand burns with warmth against Minhyuk's, and he can just stare up at his eyes, his expression unfathomable.

Then Hyungwon drops his hands, gently, and whispers a goodbye and leaves Minhyuk alone on the balcony.

 

Minhyuk passes his mirror before he falls in his bed – and abruptly pauses. And then, he finds a faint scream rise in his throat but he stops it before it passes his lips.

Encircling his neck is a forest of thick, metal chains, wrapping around his throat all the way to his nape. The marking is dark, angry, and like all others, _permanent._

He traces the reflection before feeling it himself – and he can’t scrape it off no matter how deep his nails dig.

When did this appear, it wasn’t with him yesterday afternoon when he got dressed for the party-

And then it clicks. The burning feeling at his throat in the party. That suffocating sensation that choked him.

_Hyungwon_. That’s why he _stared_ at him all that time, that’s why he told him everything, he saw the chains and how stupid Minhyuk must have looked to him, how utterly lost and broken he must have seemed-

He wishes he could purge the memory from his mind, erase the image of Hyungwon's pity-filled eyes – but he doesn’t wish to forget Hyungwon.    

 

Minhyuk _plasters_ himself on with makeup and concealer. He checks every angle of his neck to make sure Gukhwa doesn’t see a trace of the chains.

It’s of no point, of course.

He arrives, and they kiss in a vacant sort of way and everything all sort of placid and fine, it’s a warm day, and everything’s _fine_ –

And then Gukhwa narrows her eyes, and walks over to Minhyuk, and runs a finger across his throat, and stares distastefully at the foundation that now cakes the tip.

“Were you just not going to tell me?”

“Ah,” is all Minhyuk can splutter because – oh. She knows.

Gukhwa rolls her eyes. “We have mutual friends, do you _not_ think anyone would decide to mention that they saw my boyfriend with literal _chains_ around his neck?”

Minhyuk stands up and curls his hands into his pocket. “I don’t know why they came. Or what they mean.”

“Minhyuk, there’s two possibilities,” Gukhwa says, and her voice is _so_ calm. “Either the marks are because of me? In which case I’m a human shackle. Or the marks are not because of me, in which case, why are you getting marks for people who _aren’t_ me, when it’s been five years and you still can’t have a single rose?”

“I… I’m trying, I am,” he says, rubbing his hands over his neck. “I don’t know what this means. But I do care about you, I do-”

But Gukhwa’s eyes have lost the last spark of kindness. “You know what? I’m done. I really am. Because I’ve spent five years giving you love and you just can’t give me a scrap in return.”

It would be easier to handle if she was crying, but she’s not. Her voice is so calm and practised, Minhyuk wonders how long she’s been thinking these words.

“You’re going to be alone _forever_ , and you know why? Because you don’t have room in your heart to love anyone else. You just want everyone to pour and pour their love into you but you just can’t reciprocate, and your own flesh knows I’m right. All you care about is yourself.”

Minhyuk would disagree, he would fight back, he would say anything – and then he realizes, just how fitting it is to have a chain around his neck, as he keeps quiet and lets her keep talking.  

 

He’s free, right?

Why won’t the chains go away?

He’s free. Hyungwon said that they’d go away.

Well, no.

He didn’t. But he implied it. He just wants to get rid of the chains. He _needs_ to. Every time he sees them in the mirror, all he wants is to erase them. He begs Hoseok to tell him Hyungwon's phone number, and he seems surprised, but doesn’t ask too many questions. Well, after all, he’s busy with wedding preparations. Minhyuk feels bad for disturbing him in the first place.

Minhyuk wonders if he knows about the chains. He doesn’t ask about them – but he does hug Minhyuk extra tightly when they saw each other last. But that just could be because Hoseok knows when Minhyuk needs it.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me about the chains?” is the first thing Minhyuk says when he meets Hyungwon.

“I didn’t think it was something for me to tell you,” is what Hyungwon says but he can’t look Minhyuk in the eye.

Minhyuk sits down next to Hyungwon but doesn’t take his jacket off because he doesn’t think this conversation will last particularly long.

“What did you want to talk about?” Hyungwon asks, trying to eliminate the tension through speed.

And Minhyuk, who didn’t wear concealer today, because he found it increasingly difficult to _care_ , unwrapped the scarf around his neck and pointed. “Why won’t it go? I’m _free_ , okay? I know I am, I don’t want this reminder anymore. Why won’t they fade?”

“I don’t know, Minhyuk,” Hyungwon says softly, his eyes tracing the path of the way the chains linked. “I’m no expert in markings, Minhyuk, I just told you my experience.”

“But why won’t it go? It doesn’t have to disappear but if it breaks I’d feel better, I’d stop thinking that there’s something _wrong_ with me.”

And Minhyuk doesn’t know why, when ever since Gukhwa left him, he was unable to cry but he finds tears dripping onto his hands now. “Why can’t I just _love_ someone, why am I just so incapable of _caring_?”

Minhyuk keeps his gaze on his lap because he’d rather die than see the pity in Hyungwon's eyes – he kept seeing it in his mind ever since he _realized_ what happened at that party.

But then he feels warm hands cautiously cup his head, gently moving over the markings on his neck, holding him there.

“But you do care,” Hyungwon says, the words reaching Minhyuk's ear so soft and filled with concern. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have wanted to speak to me.  You wouldn’t have asked for help.”

“I didn’t come to ask for help,” Minhyuk whimpers, through tears.

"I think you did," Hyungwon says and Minhyuk finds himself wishing he sounded less _sincere_. "I think that's why you came here."

"I came here to ask you how to get rid of them," Minhyuk snaps back, with no real anger behind it.

"If you wanted to get rid of them, why didn't you just go to a tattoo parlour and get it removed? Why not just hire someone to cover it?" Hyungwon says, still not moving his hands.

Minhyuk's hand lifts up of its own accord, and closes around Hyungwon's - and _oh_. His hands are so soft and slender and it cups his jaw _so_ perfectly and Minhyuk feels awful because Hyungwon is just being friendly and he shouldn't enjoy a casual gesture so much.

And Minhyuk knows it's _nothing_ , but it feels like the way Hyungwon is touching him is everything. His tears cease, and Minhyuk faces Hyungwon looking up into those eyes, the kind brown reflecting concern back at him.

"I didn't mean to cry," he says, apologetic but unwilling to move away from this position. He can see the way the barb wires wrap around Hyungwon's wrist, and Minhyuk indulges himself in what he wanted to do since he saw them. His fingers trace the pattern, and of course, markings never feel physically different, but there's something so intimate about the act that Minhyuk wonders if Hyungwon wishes to let go.

But Hyungwon doesn't want to either, he just adjusts his grip to accommodate Minhyuk's hands. "I'm sorry about your chains - about what they represent."

"I'm sorry about your barbed wire," Minhyuk replies.

"It's okay. It doesn't bother me anymore. I'm free. And one day? This won't bother you either," Hyungwon says, very deliberately tracing over the markings on his neck. "I know that."

Minhyuk wonders why his heart is finding a home in the man in front of him. He wonders why, when it’s only been two times since they spoke – and Minhyuk wonders why he feels like the moment Hyungwon lets go, he'll spend forever missing that touch.

But Hyungwon doesn't let go. He just moves closer and presses his forehead to Minhyuk's, and they just sit there, lips so close to touching but not quite, breathing the same air, till Minhyuk's breathing returns to normal, till the world feels fine again. And Minhyuk knows there's no way Hyungwon could know about his life marking, just underneath the hair Hyungwon was currently pressing against. He didn’t know about the sun – but Hyungwon somehow just knew where to hold his touch against.

Minhyuk wonders how - but perhaps that was just an effect of his overall magnetic aura, and the way Minhyuk felt pulled to him from the moment he saw him across the room.

Hyungwon finally draws back, slowly, and through his dishevelled hair, Minhyuk sees something dull white, a mark, peeking through messed hair, that Hyungwon quickly attempts to fix.

But he sees it. Minhyuk sees the crescent moon, just under his fringe.

And, wordlessly, Minhyuk flips up his own fringe and Hyungwon stares, and stares and doesn't say anything.

 

Green vines appear, linking through each individual chain, wrapping around them, securing them. The chains never breaks, but the vines binding around make it seem like some sort of necklace - and Minhyuk finds himself growing to love it.

And Minhyuk immediately tells Hyungwon because he needs to see, because Hyungwon was the one who told him not to get it removed, to wait, and it was Hyungwon who sat up with him, staring at the night sky all these weeks –

 But the moment he sees the tall figure in the doorway he chokes up, because he's being ridiculous, why did he invite him here, Hyungwon isn't his _friend_. They just... they're something that Minhyuk doesn't know how to define. They're just the moon and the sun. There's no actual affection. They’re just citizens of the sky. That's all.

But then Minhyuk opens the door and Hyungwon looks at him, with that soft look in his eyes, and then looks down and instantly sees the green vines encircling the chains, and the way the corners of his mouth curve into a smile is the most beautiful sight Minhyuk has ever seen, and Hyungwon parts his lips to say something but the words never come out and Minhyuk doesn't even think about it too hard when he leans in and kisses him, kisses him fully and completely like he's a sun that's setting and this is all the time he has left, and this is all that matters. Hyungwon's hands drift up to his neck, and this time he wraps his arms around Minhyuk fully, holding him as close to him as humanely possible.

"They're beautiful. They're so beautiful," Hyungwon whispers between kisses, the words a rush because every moment that his mouth is away from Minhyuk is a moment too long, is like a night without a moon, it’s a loss of light and it’s a light Minhyuk is unwilling to be without anymore.

 

"Ours was a halo. The sun and an angel - a halo," Minhyuk confirms, lying next to Hoseok on the grass. It’s dark, and they can barely see each other, but Minhyuk knows enough from Hoseok’s voice to know when he’s smiling. And he is smiling. He hasn’t stopped since he saw Minhyuk.

"Yeah. A halo," Hoseok's voice is so fond. Shortly after the wedding, a robin appeared beneath his right ear, mirroring the tear drop on the other side. "It's my favourite. After, you know, _his_."

Minhyuk grins. "Goes without saying."

"Why do you ask?" Hoseok asks.

"What would a sun and moon make?"

"As a soulmate mark?" Hoseok clarifies, staring up at the stars. "Let me think about it."

Minhyuk sat up, pulling down the collar of his shirt. At the junction of his collarbones is now a dark circle - but to simply call it a dark circle is not doing it justice. It's a sphere of a midnight black, with the softest white glow outlining it.

Hoseok cannot contain the joy that spreads across his face. "It looks like an eclipse."

"Yeah. Hyungwon thought so too," Minhyuk says, fingers lightly pressing on the mark. “An eclipse.”

And tomorrow he’ll tell Hoseok what it was like to find it, and how much he loves the eclipse on his chest, and he’ll tell him all about the way Hyungwon's voice sounds when he’s just woken up, and he’ll tell him about the moon that’s on his wrist, and he’ll tell him about how sometimes Hyungwon will just stop what he’s doing and kiss Minhyuk even though he giggles through it.

But not tonight. Hoseok returned from his honeymoon, and it’s the first time they’ve seen each other in so long, and the comfortable silence is all they need. The silence and each other.

They lean back on the grass, and Minhyuk looks up at the night, and somewhere probably there's a moon, but it's not out tonight but Minhyuk doesn't really mind, because he’s made his own sky right here.

Minhyuk did always like sunset best - but he thinks he's starting to love the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday again egg!!
> 
> Gukhwa's name (which means chrysanthemum) is taken from this [manhwa](https://dynasty-scans.com/series/it_would_be_great_if_you_didnt_exist/) which is like. amazing.
> 
> This is a little different from my usual writing style and concepts but I hope everyone enjoyed! <3 Comments and kudos appreciated!
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](http://minhyukwithagun.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/minhyukwithagun)!


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